


lay this body down

by darthrevaan (Burning_Nightingale)



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Gen, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 01:18:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11220243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Nightingale/pseuds/darthrevaan
Summary: Lavernius Tucker knows who he is, and what he's doing. He knows why the Reds and Blues are taking these missions; he knows why they have to work with Charon.Lavernius Tucker knows who he is.(Doesn't he?)





	lay this body down

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the RvB Angst War, with the prompt: "RVB15: That really is the Reds and Blues. They died on Hargrove's ship and he brought them back. Back wrong." from goodluckdetective. Thanks for the prompt! 
> 
> Dedicated to Jo for helping me talk through this idea and giving me massive inspiration, even when she doesn't watch RvB xxx

Even through the helmet filters, Tucker could smell smoke.

For a long, disorienting second, he couldn’t remember where he was. _What the fuck is happening, why is everything on fire-_

 _My name Lavernius Tucker,_ he thought, _I’m on Blue Team. I’m part of the Reds and Blues._ He’d recited the same mantra so many times over, he could do it almost without thinking now; focusing on the repetition of the words was calming, grounding him to reality. _My teammates are Church and Caboose. I’m part of the Stingray Strike Team. I work for Charon Industries._

By the time he reached the end he could see on his HUD that his heart rate had slowed, that his breathing was back to normal. He was back in the moment, and he knew what he was doing.

“Tucker?” Church’s voice over the com. “Are you done? We need to bug out.”

“Gimme another second,” Tucker told him. He focused on his hands again, and what they were doing; downloading information from a computer terminal. Strange; he’d only been halfway through the hack before his moment of disorientation. Now he was done. Had his hands been moving without him?

“ _Tucker_ ,” Church snapped, “We need to go _now_.”

 _Just working on instinct_ , Tucker thought, hitting a series of buttons. “It’s still downloading, Church, stop whining.”

“We’ve got cops coming in, west side of the base,” Simmons said.

“More on the east side too,” Donut added.

“Tucker for fuck’s sake-”

“I can’t make it go faster!” Tucker yelled, “Just wait a bit-”

It felt like something kicked him square in the middle of his back; all his limbs stiffened and spasmed, sharp, searing pain arcing through his body. He slumped forward, warnings from his armour screaming in his ears; in the second before he lost consciousness he heard someone far, far above say, “Okay, I’ve got him, let’s…”

/

Tucker woke to the familiar, flat unnatural light of a spacecraft.

He struggled a little, and felt what he’d expected to; he was restrained. He hadn’t expected it to be quite so thorough, though. Instead of cuffs, there were straps over his chest, thighs, ankles, hips and head. It felt like he’d been strapped into a hospital bed. Weirdly, he was still in his armour - and despite his enhanced strength with the suit on, he couldn’t break whatever bonds they’d lashed him down with.

“He’s awake, sir,” someone said from his right, out of view.

“Who the fuck are you?” he demanded. “I hope you know who you’re fucking with-”

“We know,” the voice snapped. “We’re not afraid of Charon. Stay quiet.”

Tucker had been referring to the Reds and Blues - no one was supposed to know they were working for Charon. He felt a cold thread of unease stir in his mind. Who were these people?

It only took a few moments for someone else to arrive. Tucker could hear their footsteps, but his attempts to turn his head and look were prohibited by the strap across the front of his helmet. They’d fastened it below the visor, over where his mouth was underneath, so he could still see the armoured figure who stepped into view.

“It’s _you_ ,” Tucker snapped, “Figures. What the fuck do _you_ want?”

“So you remember me,” Carolina said, one hand on her hip.

“Er, yeah I remember you, bitch. Pretty hard to forget the traitor who turned out to be working for Hargrove the entire fucking time.”

“Interesting,” Carolina said.

“‘Interesting’? Is that all you have to say for yourself, you lying fuck?” Tucker yelled. “We trusted you!”

“So you believe I betrayed you to Hargrove…when, exactly?”

Tucker stared at her for a moment. “On the ship! On the _Staff of Charon_! We get to Hargrove and then you turn around and start shooting at-” He cut himself off with a growl. “Why am I fucking explaining this? You were there!”

“And how did I get away?” she asked, sounding as condescending as a kindergarten teacher.

“If I’d seen you getting away, you wouldn’t have done,” Tucker snapped. “I don’t know how the fuck you did it. Just like I don’t know how the fuck you could side with _Hargrove_ over us, for…for what, money? Fuck you.”

“So why are _you_ working for Charon now?” Carolina asked.

“Like you don’t know.”

“I don’t,” Carolina said. She was irritatingly calm. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“Because you and your buddy Hargrove corrupted people within Charon _and_ the UNSC with your little splinter group,” Tucker said. “We’re rooting them out.”

“I see.” She didn’t sound convinced. “While this is enlightening, Tucker, we need to perform some tests now. Don’t worry; you’ll be asleep for all of them.”

“What? No, don’t you fucking dare-” Before he could finish the sentence, everything suddenly went black.

/

When he woke again, the room was dark. He couldn’t remember breathing in gas or getting injected with anything; his memories simply shut off, like the power cord on his mind had been pulled. _Tests? What the fuck did she mean by tests?_

All he knew was he had to get out of here. Fast.

Tucker tried struggling against his bonds, but they were cinched incredibly tight; he could barely wriggle.

He lay still again, thinking. What could he do? They’d bound him very effectively to the bed, so it looked like escaping from his current position was a no-go. He’d have to wait until someone loosened the straps.

There was a soft whoosh on the other side of the room, accompanied by an increase of light; someone had opened the door. It closed within a few seconds of opening, and whoever it was didn’t announce themselves. Tucker lay, listening intently, and caught the sound of something, probably a boot, scuffing against the floor.

“Who’s there?” he demanded.

A dark shadow in the shape of a person appeared beside him, in the same position Carolina had taken earlier. “Shut up, Tucker,” a familiar voice said, “It’s me.”

“Why the _fuck_ are _you_ here!” Tucker yelled.

Something connected hard with the side of his helmet, starting a dull ache in his head. “Shut _up_ , I’m trying to help you!” Wash’s voice snapped. “For fuck’s sake, Tucker, what the hell is your problem?”

“What’s my _problem_?” Tucker snapped. “What’s my problem?! My problem is I never wanna see your stupid asshole face again!”

Wash paused. “What?”

“Didn’t hear me, fucker? I _never_ want to see you _again_.” Tucker could feel a sharp pain in his chest rising, just thinking about Wash being in the same room as him. He desperately wished he could move, just so he could punch him through the fucking wall.

“Tucker- Look, I don’t care what Charon’s told you, what you think I did, but I’m here to help you now, so I need you to shut up and stop yelling,” Wash snapped. “I need to know what Charon did to you  - Carolina’s found something but she’s not telling me anything-”

“Is this to do with those tests she was giving me earlier?” Tucker asked.

“I don’t know, probably. Do you remember anything?”

“I was out cold.” If Wash was going to tell him what the hell these two wanted him for, Tucker could pretend to play nice. Probably. If Wash was feeling sympathetic enough to help him out of these straps, he could _definitely_ play along. “What are you going to do to me, then?”

“I think…I think I need to scan your brain. They’ve obviously been messing with your memories, making you think…Well.” Wash moved something off his shoulder; it looked like a black lump, but Tucker assumed it was a bag, because Wash took something else out of it and held it up. “I probably need to take off your helmet to do it.”

“Can’t,” Tucker said, “This armour needs a special machine to come off.”

Wash’s silhouette cocked its head. “Tucker, that only applies to Spartan armour. _Old_ Spartan armour, at that. Your armour’s always come off and on manually, remember?”

“This is new-”

“And based on the Spartan VI design, which doesn’t need the machine,” Wash said firmly. “What, afraid I’ll think you’re ugly?”

It was so warm, so like the _old_ Wash, that Tucker had to bite his tongue on a scream of frustration and anger. How could Wash think he could waltz in here, pretend like nothing had changed-

The strap holding his head in place suddenly loosened. “Keep still, let me take your helmet off,” Wash said. Tucker felt the pressure of his fingers, the tug as he tried to pull the helmet off  - but nothing happened.

“Told you,” he said. “Can’t take it off.”

Wash tugged a few more times, making a frustrated noise as he continued to fail. “I’m pressing the release seals,” he said. “I can’t understand why they would…” He sighed, and his hands disappeared. “Fine, I’ll just scan you with the helmet on.”

“Fine by me,” Tucker said. Inside his helmet, he grinned a little; one of the straps was gone. Didn’t get him any closer to using his hands, but it was something.

There was a long silence as Wash fiddled with whatever gadget he’d brought. He waved it around over Tucker’s head, then looked at it, tapped the screen, and swore.

“Are you fucking it up?” Tucker asked acidly.

“I’m doing it exactly the way the instructions tell you to.” Wash fiddled with it some more, waved it over Tucker again, and cursed. “It’s not showing any reading on _any_ chart. According to this, you’ve got no vitals, no brain activity, nothing.”

“Well my HUD begs to differ,” Tucker snapped. “And so does the fact that I’m, uh, alive, unless you hadn’t noticed, genius.”

Wash blew out a frustrated breath. “This might be being blocked by the armour,” he said, though he didn’t sound convinced. “It should be showing _something_ , at least…”

It was at that moment that the light turned on.

Wash whirled round, going for the gun at his belt; Tucker whipped his head around too, now free to look at whoever was in the doorway. There were four figures, frozen in a tableau of furtive sneaking; a woman and three men.

Four _familiar_ figures.

“Sir,” Andersmith said, sounding surprised.

“Guess you’re here for the same reason we are,” Bitters said.

Wash took his hand off his gun. “If you’re here to find out what happened to the Reds and Blues, then yes.”

Taking that as silent permission, they moved into the room almost as one. “Have you found anything, sir?” Jensen asked.

“Only that my scanner doesn’t work.”

The easy, _trusting_ way they entered the room, their casual deference… “You’re working with these guys now?” Tucker said, trying not to yell the words.

Palomo tipped his head. “What?”

“Ignore him, I think he’s been implanted with false memories,” Wash said.

 “That’s what you would say, you back-stabbing-”

“Shut _up_ , Tucker,” Wash cut him off. “Do you want us to find out what’s wrong with you or not?”

“There’s _nothing_ wrong with me!”

“Praxley said they were doing scans with the big equipment, turning up weird stuff,” Bitters said. “She gave us the code to get into computer.”

“Good job,” Wash said, “Do you know how to do it?”

“Jensen does.”

Jensen walked all the way around Tucker’s bed, glancing at him and then hurriedly looking away. He watched as she walked over to the far side of the room, where a computer terminal was set into the wall. The others followed and blocked Tucker’s view as she woke it up and began to tap commands into it. Bitters handed her a piece of paper, presumably with the passcode written on it, and Jensen navigated her way through several screens that Tucker couldn’t see before she landed on something. “It must be these,” she said. “But…”

“Where’s the _body_?” Palomo asked.

“It just…looks like a machine,” Andersmith said, his voice hushed.

“What the fuck are you guys looking at over there?” Tucker demanded.

None of them seemed to hear him. “This can’t be right,” Jensen said. Tucker saw the light flicker as she changed screens. “They have to be somewhere else-”

“There’s no other deep scans with today’s date, Katie,” Bitters said.

The flickering stopped. “But it can’t…” Jensen trailed off into silence.

Slowly, Wash turned around and looked at Tucker. He hadn’t said anything; the expression on his face was like stone. “Tucker,” he said. His voice sounded hollow. “When was the last time you took your armour off?”

“I-” The answer should have been on the tip of his tongue, but it was weirdly hard to remember. “Like, last week? We do a lot of missions, man, I-”

“When was the last time, _exactly_?” Wash ground out, his voice icy cold. “The date, the _time_.”

“Dude, I don’t remember the exact time! It’s not like I’m taking notes-”

“When was the last time you ate, Tucker?” Wash demanded. “When was the last time you slept? _When was the last time you took your armour off_?!”

“I don’t know!” Tucker yelled. “What the fuck is this-”

Wash advanced towards him, his expression suddenly murderous. Tucker instinctively tried to back away, but he was strapped to the bed, unable to shift more than a few inches. Wash suddenly had a knife in his hand, a big one, and where the fuck had _that_ come from-

Wash leant over him and made a slash across his elbow joint, right where he wasn’t protected by any plate. Tucker yelled, partly from the small flare of pain, but mostly from fear of the enraged Freelancer hanging over him.

“Wash, what he fuck-” he heard Bitters say.

“There’s nothing here,” Wash said, “No- no skin, no flesh-”

Tucker felt the knife again, cutting deeper this time. “What the fuck are you doing?!” he yelled, voice screechy with panic.

“There’s nothing here!” Wash said, louder this time. “There’s nothing but _wires_ -”

Tucker’s world flared with burning, white-hot agony, centered on his arm where he could distantly feel the knife _hacking_ at him, as if Wash were trying to perform some kind of fucked up surgery. It took a while for him to realize the person he could hear screaming was himself.

Suddenly the knife was gone, though the burning pain remained. Tucker knew nothing but that pain, felt nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing-

Until suddenly the pain was gone.

For a moment he was confused, his mind too jumbled to muster a single coherent thought. Then a wash of relief flowed over him, so strong it was like a drug. “What the- what the-” he could hear himself saying, without really meaning to.

“I’m sorry,” Carolina’s voice said, “I didn’t mean for you to find out like this.”

Tucker looked up. He was still mostly strapped to the bed; Carolina was standing beside him, arms folded. Wash was nowhere in sight.

“What the fuck,” Tucker gasped, “What the _fuck.”_

“I didn’t anticipate that,” Carolina said. “I should have. I’m sorry. We’ll repair the arm for you.”

“My arm,” Tucker gasped, and looked down at it.

It hung loosely, the forearm clearly half-detached from the rest of him. A thick liquid was flowing out of it, but it was deep black, not red; there was no flesh. Just machinery.

 _There’s nothing here_ , Wash’s voice wailed in his head, _Nothing but wires!_

“What the fuck is that?” Tucker’s voice cracked, his body instinctively trying to scoot away from the alien, inhuman wreckage that used to be his arm. “It’s not- it’s just- it’s just _wires_!”

“I thought you’d realized,” Carolina said. She sounded strangely cold. “This is what Charon really did to you. You’re not human; you’re an AI piloting a robotic suit of Spartan armour.”

Tucker couldn’t speak. He couldn’t form words, couldn’t think-

(How was he speaking, anyway? If he didn’t have a mouth, how could he form words? He didn’t have a mouth. _God_ , he didn’t have a _mouth_ )

“I’m not,” he stuttered, “I’m not- I’m- I’m real, I am real, I’m real…”

“The stress of this revelation is having a disturbing effect on his mental state,” an unfamiliar voice said from nowhere. “I would like to put him into a, well, I suppose you would call it a coma, to help him cope. Then perhaps I can talk to him in a virtual simulation, make it easier for him to accept his new reality.”

“Do it, Jena,” Carolina said. Then to Tucker, “She’s our ship AI. She’ll take care of you.”

“I’m real,” Tucker insisted. He could feel his mind slowing, his vision going dark at the edges. “I’m real, I’m…I’m real…”

“You are real,” Carolina said. Her voice was hard and cold. “But you’re not Lavernius Tucker.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm at darthrevaan.tumblr.com for questions, chats, and (potentially angsty) prompts ;D
> 
> Title from _Long Time Traveller_ by the Wailin' Jennys.


End file.
